Digital First MediaDETROIT — Hernan Perez smoked a ball to left field late last week and, with a runner already on second base at the time, it looked like the rookie was about to get his first career RBI in the big leagues.

Tigers third base coach Tom Brookens windmilled his arm, sending the runner galloping toward the plate — and sliding into a tag from White Sox catcher Josh Phegley, who was blocking the plate with the ball.

If it had been any other runner on the Tigers squad, other than Victor Martinez and his surgically repaired knee, he might have gotten Perez his first RBI.

Had it been any other runner, and it might have been a better test for Chicago left fielder Dayan Viciedo’s arm.

Had it been any other runner, the slide into the plate might not have been as noteworthy.

But this was Martinez, who missed all of last season after experimental knee surgery, and has pulled up before home-plate collisions before this season.

The last thing the Tigers need is Martinez hurt again, considering how much his January knee injury impacted the 2012 season.

And the last thing the Tigers need is anything that might take Martinez out of the zone that he’s all of a sudden gotten himself into.

“There’s no health issues. Victor’s fine, and Victor’s settling back into the Victor we know,” said manager Jim Leyland of the recent surge by Martinez — a 14-game hit streak entering Saturday that had his average up to a season-high .261. “And you can see it.”

That hasn’t always been the case this season, making the No. 5 hole in the Tigers’ lineup as woefully inconsistent and underproductive as hit had been in his absence in 2012.

At the end of April, Martinez was hitting just .221.

By the end of May, it was only up to .228.

It was only .232 at the end of June.

Since the start of July through Friday night, though, Martinez has hit .438 — third-best in the American League — raising his average 30 points in 13 days. His 21 hits in that span are most in the AL, and his six doubles are second-most.

Victor, it appears, is back.“Oh, man. It’s a lot of fun when Victor’s swinging the bat. You’ve seen him do it in 2011 — he was struggling in May and June, and before you know it, he’s hitting .330. Don’t think he can’t do it again. I mean, he missed the whole year with the leg injury, and come back, it was going to take him some time. Not just one day. It might take him a month, it might take a whole year. For Victor, it took two months, and that’s still impressive in itself,” teammate Torii Hunter said.

“He looks alive, he looks stronger. Legs might be getting under him. He’s starting to get his rhythm. When you miss a year of baseball, it takes a while to get that rhythm, and I can see that rhythm coming the last 10-15 days. I think if he gets hot, we’re going to have a lot of fun.”

For his own part, Martinez says not a lot is different.

“I don’t know. I’m just going out there, staying positive, and keep swinging the bat. I always say, when you put good swings on the ball, anything can happen,” he said. “Just taking it day-by-day, game-by-game. Never get ahead of myself, play the game right, come to play baseball every day, and good things happen.”

But it was clear that Martinez has begun to have a swing in luck — from abysmally bad to relatively good — rewarding him on all those hard-hit balls that had not been falling in before. At one point in June, he was connecting on the sixth-most hard-hit balls in the big leagues, but his average was only .231.

“I think they start falling, for sure. I’ve been taking good at-bats, putting good swings and finally finding some holes,” Martinez agreed.

And his resurgence has made a difference in the Tigers’ offense, too. Since the start of July, the team is averaging 6.25 runs per game, up from the 5.00 run-per-game average it had posted in the half-season before July 1.

“He’s huge. When you have the three guys in the middle of your lineup like Prince (Fielder), Miguel (Cabrera) and Victor, and Victor’s swinging the bat now — he was swinging it well all year, but he was just hitting it right at guys. Now he’s getting stuff to drop, coming up with big hits with runners on base,” starting pitcher Rick Porcello said. “You can obviously see how our offense is going right now — we’re putting up eight, nine, 10 runs a game, with just that one guy that’s turning things around. Really it makes everything fall into place.”

It has appeared several times this season like Martinez might have turned the proverbial corner. His health has been there all along, he’s insisted, and there’s never been any fatigue.

“I did a lot of work, with my rehab and stuff. I’m just glad that I did it right,” he said quietly last week. He’s admitted before this season how hard mentally that year off was for him.

The main challenge since the season started, though, was recapturing that stroke that had him hitting .330 for the Tigers in 2011.

It’s been hard to find. And it’s been hard for him to keep the consistent approach that he’s showing now, hard for him to continue to be the doubles gap hitter they need him to be, without trying to be the home run hitter he’s never really been.

He hasn’t always maintained that this season.

“No. The difference is, he’s taking base hits all over the field. And the other difference is, he was cranking a little bit more for the long ball,” said Leyland, who insists that home runs come by accident, base hits by design.

“Base hits come by design. You’re just going with the pitch, not trying to do too much. When you get a home run, you get a cookie, and you try to turn on it. Over the years, I asked a lot of home run hitters how many home runs they hit when they were actually trying to hit a home. Every one of them told me the same thing: Not very many. Some of them told me none.”

The Tigers don’t need Martinez to be a home run hitter.

They need him to be a doubles hitter.

Put a line drive drive between the Trader Joe’s sign and the Jimmy John’s sign at Comerica Park, and it’s probably going to be far more productive than trying to hit it in the shrubbery — or in the seats.

After all, Martinez had only 12 home runs when he drove in 103 runs in 2011. That’s right about the pace he’s on this year, too.

And that’s just fine for the Tigers.

“I think the one thing he’s doing is he’s staying in the strike zone, for the most part, not trying to hit the ball out of the ballpark. That’s the other thing,” Leyland said. “He’s just laying the bat on the ball, being the Victor we had a couple of years ago, and that’s the Victor we like the best.”

And the one they need.Martinez would need to hit around .400 for the rest of the season to finish with his ninth campaign of .300 or better. They don’t need him to do that, either, necessarily.

But if he can finish around .280, with 80-plus RBI, 10 or more homers and 35 or more doubles, that should be exactly what the Tigers need. (For reference, Detroit got a .252 average, 78 RBI, 18 homers and 27 doubles from the No. 5 spot last year.)

And it will be one less need that general manager Dave Dombrowski needs to address at the trade deadline at the end of the month.

Matthew B. Mowery covers the Tigers for Digital First Media. Read his “Out of Left Field” blog at opoutofleftfield.blogspot.com.